Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Boltzmannstraße 22
14195 Berlin
E-mail: coertzen@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
Title: | Dr. |
Prename: | Alice |
Surname: | Mühsam |
Name of birth: | Freymarck |
Profession: | Archaeologist, conservator |
Birthday: | 1889 |
Place of birth: | Berlin |
Date of death: | 02/26/1968 |
Place of death: | Spring Valley, NY |
Married since: | 1911 |
Married to: | Dr. Kurt Mühsam (1882-1931) |
Profession husband: | journalist, writer, film critic, chief editor |
Children: | 3 (Ruth Marton, born 1912; Gerd, born 1913; Helmut, born 1914) |
Education: | Before 1911 private musical training and short spell of attendance at the Berlin State School of Music; 1922–28 prepares for external final high school examinations (*Abitur*); 1929–36 university studies (archaeology, art history) in Berlin; 1936 doctorate |
Career: | 1914–22 music journalist; 1936–38 lectures on art history in various Jewish educational institutions; 1940 emigrates to the United States, initially works as a cleaner in New York City; 1940–42 with the support of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) retrains as conservator at the Brooklyn Museum, later freelance conservator of ancient art; from c. 1950 German tutor at Columbia University with recommendation from Margarete Bieber |
Memberships: | German Federation of University Women (DAB) |
Biographical literature: | Margarete Bieber, “Alice Muehsam, 1890–1968,” *Art Journal* 27 (1968), no. 4: 398; obituary, *New York Times*, February 29, 1968; Ulrike Wendland, *Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler* (Munich: Saur, 1999), vol. 1, 447–8 |
Major works: | *Attic Grave Reliefs from the Roman Period* (diss.; Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard, 1956); *The Sense of Form in Art: A Comparative Psychological Study* (New York: Chelsea, 1958 = translation, with Norma A. Shatan, of Heinrich Wölfflin, *Die Kunst der Renaissance: Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl*, 1931); *German readings II. A Brief Survey of Art From the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century for Students of German and Fine Arts* (New York: Wittenborn, 1959); *Coin and Temple. A Study of the Architectural Representation on Ancient Jewish Coins* (Leeds: Leeds University Oriental Society, 1966) |